Our view: Laughing into the face of the local Tea Party

Posted: July 13, 2013 - 11:05pm

The Tea Party has hit some bumps in the road. Its approval rating, once high, has slipped, with 37 percent of Americans having a favorable view of it and 47 percent having an unfavorable view of it, according to a CNN poll in May. And that’s an improvement from where it had been earlier in the year.

What that says, pretty clearly, is that movement is not doing a good job selling its message.

And nowhere is that more clear than in St. Johns County, where the most visible local Tea Party group, the Saint Augustine Tea Party, is best known for its small band of members who walk around downtown wearing Colonial garb complete with tricorn hats.

They carry signs calling President Obama a Communist, slamming the IRS, defending gun rights, stuff like that. They say that they are standing up for liberty, for freedom, for the American way.

What they are not doing is advancing one iota the Tea Party’s message of smaller government, lower taxes and repealing health-care reform. Walking around in period garb may bring smiles to the faces of passersby, but it doesn’t engage people intellectually, it doesn’t sell the ideas that Tea Party members embrace.

It’s no surprise that people like U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Ponte Vedra Beach, doesn’t use the words “Tea Party” to identify himself, although that is the backbone of his support. One of his early backers was FreedomWorks, the group supported by the Koch brothers of Kansas and one of the most visible faces of the national Tea Party movement.

There are two other Tea Party groups in St. Johns County, the Molasses Junction Tea Party and the St. Johns County Tea Party, headed by Eric West. The latter group started after it split from the Saint Augustine Tea Party.

West’s group thinks the future of the local Tea Party is to get people who share their views elected to public office. They see the costume-wearing Tea Party members as a joke who undercut the goal of changing the way government does business.

West’s group has had some success at the ballot box. Gary Howell, one of the three Mosquitoteers who ran on a strong Tea Party message, won a seat on the Anastasia Mosquito Control Board. Randy Covington, a leading voice in the local Tea Party movement, also ran for the Mosquito Control Board, but lost.

Nationally, the Tea Party movement has suffered because of the perception that they are unbending and unwilling to compromise, a sign that they reject the key premise of politics, which is engaging in the art of compromise. By not compromising, they have turned off voters.

But at least nationally they are seeking to engage people through ideas, through policy decisions, through changing the way politics is done.

You can’t say that of the small band of Saint Augustine Tea Party members who walk downtown with their signs and their period garb. More people, we believe, are laughing at them than with them. And as that happens, they only serve to undercut the Tea Party message and the people who seek to bring change through the ballot box.

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So here we anonymous commentary from fools who must walk around with horse blinders on. This is EXACTLY why the FREE copy of the Record that shows up on my doorstep every Sunday heads right to the bottom of my Birds cages to collect crap!
Can this paper try to print actual news once and a while?

The folks walking around with "impeach Obama" are just showing their true colors. Calling our president Communist? Really?. They are just hanging themselves. Remember the old Beatles song?

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

The Tea Party desperately needs a leader with charisma and credibility on the national scene. Also, the Tea Party needs to demonstrate that it is totally untethered to either the GOP or the Democratic Party.

And they've got to get rid of the silly costumes to be taken seriously.